


TUA Holiday feat. One Mess of a Family

by livtontea



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Chapter Specific Warnings, Ficlet Collection, Gen, No Incest, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, TUA Holiday
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:01:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21638521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livtontea/pseuds/livtontea
Summary: 2019's unofficial holiday prompts. Still doing my best.
Relationships: The Hargreeves Family
Comments: 38
Kudos: 40





	1. Mittens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tehmoonofficial](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tehmoonofficial/gifts).



> so [@tehmoonofficial](https://tehmoonofficial.tumblr.com/) made a [holiday prompt list](https://tehmoonofficial.tumblr.com/post/189418400075/the-umbrella-academy-winter-holidays-prompts), and apparently after inktober i didn't learn anything? so i'm doing it instead of like,,,, taking a fucking chill pill for once in my life lmao

Klaus gleefully scoops up snow and dumps it on his brother’s head. It falls through, naturally. Ben sighs.

“You’ve been doing this for the past ten minutes. Aren’t you tired?”

“Nope!” says Klaus. 

“Klaus, your hands are all red.” 

Klaus quickly hides his uncovered hands behind his back. They are, indeed, red from the cold. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

Ben groans.  _ “Klaus.” _

“What! Aren’t you having fun?”

Ben runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it to get out snow that isn’t there. He may not feel it, per se, but there’s a sort of sensation that comes with things passing through him. “Not really.”

Klaus pouts. “Why not?”

“It feels weird! And your hands are going to freeze.”

“So? My hands, not yours.”

Ben deadpans, “At this point, they’re mine by association.”

Klaus gasps. “Did you just claim ownership of my hands?”

“Maybe I did! Come on, can’t you at least put on some gloves?”

Klaus frowns at Ben. They have a staring contest of sorts, Klaus squinting with a pout and Ben looking blankly and alright, he’ll admit it—slightly judgementally. Finally, Klaus groans and throws up his hands, giving in.

“Fine!” 

He stomps over to the door leading inside. Ben doesn’t follow, knowing his brother will come back out as soon as he finds gloves.

Sure enough, minutes later Klaus stomps back into the cold wearing…

Bright pink mittens.

“Mittens? Seriously?”

“Mom made them, so shut the fuck up.”

“Oh, okay. You’re right, mittens are great.”

Klaus grins at Ben, and bends down to gather more snow. He spends the next hour chasing his dead brother around the courtyard, because Ben would really rather avoid having more snow dumped on him, thank you very much.


	2. Hot Cocoa

There’s milk boiling on the stove. Not boiling—heating, hopefully.

Diego is a firm believer that the right way to heat milk is on a stove. Sure, you can use a microwave and have it straight in your cup; that’s fine for just milk. But if you’re making cocoa?

Motherfucking  _ stove. _

There’s not even an argument to be had! He’s right, and that’s that. The milk is heating on the stove, and Diego is standing over it, watching it for bubbles.

“It’s not going to heat faster if you look at it,” Eudora says. She’s leaning over the table, hair matted from sleep. There’s a plate of pancakes in front of her, Diego’s creation. Not the plate, the pancakes, obviously. Out of all seven of them, he thinks Allison and maybe Klaus were the only ones who knew how to make plates.

Diego’s always been the best at cooking though. He’s spent way too much time with Mom not to be.

He stirs the milk in the saucepan. It should be hot enough by now. Little bubbles are on the sides of the pan where the milk touches, but it’s not quite boiling. Diego turns down the gas and pours the melted chocolate into the milk. 

“Can you pass me the whisk?”

Eudora sighs and hands him the whisk. “Take it.”

Diego huffs amusedly and starts mixing the sauce with the milk. It blends into one smooth brown liquid. He pours in into mugs and tosses some mini marshmallows on top—how he knows Eudora likes it.

“Your cocoa, m’ lady.”

Eudora laughs and takes the mug. “Stop.”

“I can always take it back,” says Diego. “I made it, it’s mine.”

She sticks out her tongue and takes a big sip. “That’s not how it works.”

Diego shrugs and swallows down some of his own cocoa. It’s nice. Not as good as Mom makes it, but being here in the kitchen, drinking disgustingly sweet hot cocoa with Eudora? It’s nice.

***

The milk is heating on the stove. Mom bustles around the kitchen as Diego sits on the counter and swings his legs, looking at the saucepan with interest.

“M-Mom? Why is the milk on the stove?” His legs bounce off the side of the counter.

Mom turns and smiles at him. “To heat, of course!”

“But cuh-couldn’t we just put it in thuh-the micro- microwave?”

“Of course not, silly. You can’t put metal in the microwave!” Mom walks over and places a bowl filled with melty chocolate next to the stove. She stirs the milk. Diego can smell it.

“I m-mean, um, why not? Why not warm it in— in a cup? In the muh-mah-m—” Diego cuts of and wrinkles his nose.

“The microwave,” Grave supplies. “Remember, just picture the word in your mind.”

“M-muh-m-mah-micro—” Diego sighs. “Mi-cro-wave,” he repeats the syllables slowly.

“Good job! Well, we can’t heat it in the microwave because then I would have to heat seven cups, separately! That would take much more time, wouldn’t it?”

Diego nods in agreement.

“And besides, the stove heats it more thoroughly. It works better. See?” She tilts the pan toward Diego, who peers into it curiously. The milk is steaming, almost boiling around the edges. He nods again.

“Here, would you like to stir in the chocolate?”

“Yes!” Diego says. “What do I-?”

Mom reaches into a pocket on her apron and pulls out what he recognizes to be a whisk. Diego takes it and gets to slowly mixing the milk with the chocolate, pouring it in as he goes.

“A little faster is fine, dear.”

“Oh-o-okay.”

Standing in the kitchen, Diego whisking hot cocoa and Mom cleaning pots and pans and cutting the marshmallows she made last night to put into the cocoa—she also takes the whipped cream Diego made earlier from the fridge, setting it on the counter with a smile.

It’s nice.


	3. Snowflakes

Five appears in her room early in the morning. His hair is disheveled, like he'd just spent a long time running his hands through it. He lands at the foot of her bed with a thump, a bowl in his hands, and a slightly manic look in his eye.

"Vanya," he hisses. "Vanya!"

Vanya, who had previously been asleep and is now in groggy limbo, turns over and groans. Five whisper-shouts her name again—to no avail. He presses his lips together and dips his fingers into the bowl, then presses them against Vanya's skin.

"Wha—" Vanya is startled awake by the ice-cold touch on her neck. "Five? Why are you—? What  _ time _ is it?"

"Four-thirty."

"Four-thirty? That's— Five, why are you here? And why did you have to put  _ snow _ on me?" She sits up, rubbing away the tingling feeling on her neck. Five flicks some water at her from his fingertips. Vanya yelps and tries to duck under the covers.

"It's melted, actually. That's what I need you for."

"Need me? Five, why would you need me for something like this?"

"You," Five says, "are going to make snow."

"...What?"

He flaps his hand dismissively. "Snow, snowflakes, doesn't matter. It's cold enough right now that they should freeze on their own, so get dressed and get out into the courtyard."

"Five, why do you even—"

"Fifteen minutes." Five jumps away to who knows where. Well, the courtyard, presumably. 

Well, fuck.

Christ. Why her.

Vanya looks at her alarm clock. The bright numbers blink at her tauntingly.

Four thirty-seven.

It's not like she's going to fall back asleep anyway. Vanya groans from the center of her very being and sits up.

"It's like stepping into the Arctic," she mutters, and heaves herself out of bed.

***

It's even colder outside, even though Vanya is bundled into a coat and two layers of sweatpants. Five is sitting by the base of Ben's statue, the bowl of water set by his side. He’s wearing his pajamas—not even a jacket to protect him from the wintery chill.

“Oh, finally,” he says as Vanya approaches him. “Okay, let’s start.”

“Not so fast,” Vanya tells him with the “mom voice”, as Allison likes to call it. Five may be the oldest of them all, but he  _ is _ simultaneously the youngest—rapid age fluctuations or whatever he called it. “Go inside and get something warm on first.”

“What? No. I’m warm enough already.”

Vanya levels him with her stare, and is happy to see him fidget for a second and then huff and jump away. He reappears a second later with a hat on his head and a scarf wrapped around his neck.

“Is that sufficient?” he deadpans.

“Good enough,” says Vanya. 

“Okay,” stresses Five. "Now come on, there's only so long until it starts warming up again."

Five takes the bowl into the hands and holds it out toward Vanya expectantly. She frowns. He shakes it, careful not to spill any water. Vanya shrugs.

"I don't know what you want from me."

Five throws back is head and groans in true teenage fashion. "Make snow!"

"How? That isn't how it works, Five, I can't just—" she mimes an explosion, "—make snow!"

"Why not? All you have to do it make snowflakes, and then they'll freeze, and there'll be snow!"

"Snowflakes are too small, I won't be able to make them," says Vanya. "What am I supposed to do anyway? Serenade the water into crystallizing?"

Five's eyes flash determined blue. If Vanya didn't like where this was going before she sure doesn't like it now. "If all you need is a motive, then don't worry. I'll give you a motive."

"Five, no—"

But it's too late, because Five jerks the bowl upward and the water spills out—more like splashes, rocketing upward and fanning out in the air, and then spilling onto the two.

Vanya yelps.

The water doesn't reach the sparse grass. Air swirls around it, keeping droplets hovering above the ground. Five is grinning.

"Now just make them snowflakes! You have them in the air already, come on, please?"

Vanya sighs and gives in. She holds out her hands, as she has found it improves her focus, and hums a tune. Five whoops as the air around the water droplets swirls faster and faster. Vanya smiles. It's always nice to practice her power safely, but it's even nicer to have fun with it.

Suddenly everything freezes. Snowflakes hang in the air, Vanya carefully keeping them suspended.

"How long is it going to take them to freeze?" she asks.

"Less than a minute," says Five. "Just keep them still."

The snowflakes are frozen in mere moments, and Five reaches out to grab one from the air. It melts in his hand, and he looks at the water on his skin in awe.

"Thanks," he says to Vanya. "For doing this with me."

"No problem." Vanya puts her hand on Five's shoulder and pulls him into a hug slowly enough to let him back out. He doesn't.

It's dark. Five and Vanya are hugging in the courtyard, snowflakes in the air around them.


	4. Gingerbread

A puzzle piece slots into place. Then after a moment of hesitation, another. Then another. The picture is still unclear, bits and pieces forming angles and corners of the image.

Five sighs. The puzzle pieces are already sorted and organized by color. It still takes time to find the right piece and press it into what will become the finished product.

It’s been… what? Ten minutes? And he’s only gotten somewhere near half of the puzzle done. 

“Stupid generic holiday entertainment,” he mutters.

“What?” says Ben. He’s on the couch, nose stuck in a book.

“This is dumb!” Five slaps another piece down. “It’s just a repetitive activity that serves no purpose whatsoever. What am I supposed to do once I finish, anyway?”

“You could frame it,” suggests Ben.

“Yeah, right. Sure. Frame and hang this ugly puzzle.”

“Either way it’ll look better than the paintings hanging around. You could put it over the fireplace instead of your portrait.”

Five opens his mouth to dismiss the silly idea, but…

He spends the next twenty minutes putting the puzzle together in silence. Ben continues reading, not paying attention to anything outside of his book. Soon enough, Five’s finished.

It’s a really ugly gingerbread man. The puzzle, that is—a too close for comfort picture of a slightly crumbly cookie.

“Ben?”

“Yeah?”

“Come help me find a frame.”

“I’m sorry, what? A frame? Why would you…” Ben lowers his book and finally looks down at the puzzle on the floor. “...Oh. You’re kidding.”

“You suggested it.”

“I didn’t think you’d actually  _ do _ it,” says Ben. At Five’s steady stare he caves and sighs, “Fine. The things I do for this fucking family.”

They find a frame easily enough—putting the puzzle behind the glass carefully. It’s a little crooked, but that adds to the charm. Five and Ben take it over to where the portrait hangs, and unceremoniously take the Five-lookalike down to the floor.

When Allison wanders into the library in search of her brothers, she doesn’t comment on the ugly puzzle hanging over the fireplace. 


	5. Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw drowning

He doesn't need to breathe, but even so, the feeling of water pressing down on him from above is not a pleasant one. His limbs feel leaden; heavy and dragging him down deeper. The sunlight from above barely reaches him, now; the stray rays that make it this deep are easily quenched by the inky blackness of the water.

Diego tries to kick upward toward. His legs flail—uncoordinated and practically useless. It's so cold.

He knows that soon, he'll become paralyzed. His body will stop moving, and he'll sink like a stone. His heart will give up on pumping blood, and then he'll die.

His mind is moving slow and sluggish. The only thought that's going through his head is he needs to get  _ out. _ The water surrounds him. Diego can see lazy bubbles float up to the surface.

He doesn't need to breathe. He doesn't need to breathe.  _ Don't try to breathe. _

It's so fucking  _ cold. _

Suddenly Diego thinks: if he doesn't get out, swim up to the surface, he's dead.

Dead.

Diego doesn't want to die. He kicks again, and again, and tries to push the water aside with his arms, and he keeps kicking. He can feel himself moving up. Slowly, slowly, he rises to where the surface has to be.

The little streams of sun light up the water. Diego grins, he almost does, but as soon as his mouth opens the slightest bit water rushes into his throat. He snaps his mouth shut and closes his eyes. Diego coughs with sealed lips, choking on the water. He can't breathe. He can't breathe. He can't  _ breathe— _

Diego hacks the water out of his lungs. He takes a breath, and chokes again. 

It repeats. 

Diego keeps his mouth shut this time. The water drowning him from the inside doesn't matter anyway—not when the surface is so close. Diego reaches his hand up, and with a final surge of strength kicks up.

He doesn't break the surface.

Diego's insides freeze. His intestines feel like they're twisting, curdling together.

He forgot about the ice.


	6. Sledding

“I don’t want to be here,” complains Five for what has to be the thirtieth time. “This is pointless.”

“No, it isn’t,” insists Allison. “It’s fun. Come on, just once?”

Five crosses his arms. “No! It’s just going down a hill! There is literally nothing more to it.”

“Then go down the hill, Five.”

“I won’t, because unlike  _ you, _ I still have dignity.”

“...I watched you drop a sandwich yesterday.”

Five frowns. “So? Things fall.”

“You picked it up and kept eating it,” says Allison. “And then you dropped it again. And then you ate it again. You don’t get to tell me I don’t have dignity.”

Five rolls his eyes. “I still have more than you do.”

Allison claps him on the shoulder cheerily and grins. “No, you don’t. Get on the sled.”

“I’m not going on the sled!” Five lifts his foot, but catches himself just before stomping it like a little kid throwing a tantrum. Allison smiles smugly. She knows that he’s not going to win this.

“I’ll drive you to Griddy’s after,” she promises. “If you sled.”

Five inhales sharply. “That isn’t fair and you know it.”

Allison stays silent, spreading her arms and grinning cheekily as if to say,  _ the choice is yours. _ Five groans.

“Fine!”

They sled down the hill. Five is very obviously enjoying it, but it’s not like he’ll admit it.

  
  



	7. Snowman

If he wants this to work, Luther is going to have to be quick. Maybe he’s taking this a little bit too seriously, but he’s also having fun with it. Of course, the others would probably argue that—he checks the time—four in the morning is too early to be outside building snowmen. 

Or that four in the morning is too early, period. It’s fine though, Luther’s sleep schedule is still messed up from the moon, anyway. If he didn’t go do something, he would just end up laying in bed and staring at the ceiling.

Usually, that would be going to the garden and tending to his plants—but this crisp December day he has other things to do.

Luther rolls another snowball around in his hands, making sure it’s the right shape and packed just tightly enough that loose snow can still stick to it. When it’s good to go, Luther bends down and starts rolling it across the ground.

The snowball soon turns into a snow-sphere, and then grows even more until it’s a round snow-boulder. Luther loops back around and places it down—not before lifting it to brush off stray twigs and dead leaves—as the middle of the snowman.

“They’re a lot like insects,” he says to himself. “Head, thorax, abdomen.”

If he told anybody that they’d probably tell him that it’s gross, but Luther wouldn’t mind. He likes bugs. A lot of them are good for his garden, and the ones who aren’t don’t bother him a great deal.

Luther gets to making another snowball, the smallest one so far. The head goes on top, and Luther steps back to admire his work.

It’s not bad. The snowballs are missing bits in some places, or are a little flat on one side, but they still hold firm together. Now all that’s left is the features.

Luther carefully presses his thumbs into the top sphere to make indents for eye sockets. He rubs snow off the sides of the head to make it more square, and then draws lines of hair from the top to the sides and back. He’s not an artist, but he thinks he can see the resemblance.

Luther draws a jacket into the snowman’s torso. He takes off his scarf (which wasn’t really necessary in the first place) and wraps it around the snowman’s “neck”.

There.

Luther is just about to go in when Ben appears in the doorway. He walks to Luther.

“Klaus sent me to check on you,” he says. “He didn’t wanna go outside himself.”

“Why not?”

“It’s cold. He’s hiding under, like… four blankets.”

Luther nods. “Oh. Makes sense.” He’s never been too bad with the cold, always warmer than the others, but his other siblings got chilled pretty quick. Except Five, that is—he’s like a furnace. And Ben, but Ben can’t feel cold. Back then, he was always the first one to go down sick.

“Yeah. So, what’re you doing?” Ben waves at the snowman absentmindedly, before backpedaling and squinting at it. He walks close to it, examining the “jacket” and the face.

“Is that… Is that me?”

Luther nods. “Yeah. It’s, uh…” He waves to where the decapitated head of Ben’s statue still rests. It’s barely visible, covered in snow. He doesn’t know why they never got rid of it, or at least moved it somewhere else.

“Luther, did you make me a new statue? But a snowman?” Ben reaches out to press his hand to the snow. It doesn’t go through. Ben’s solid as well as visible.

“Uh, yeah, I hope that’s okay? You seem kind of upset whenever you see it so I thought a new one might help? I don’t know, but yeah, it’s a new statue.”

Ben laughs. “Luther, this is amazing! I love it, what the hell. Can you take a picture?”

“Sure? If you want.” Luther grins at his brother next to the frozen imitation of himself. Ben is smiling, still poking gently at the snowman.

“I do. You know, this one looks more like me than the other one,” says Ben.

“Does it?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“No problem,” says Luther. And then he leaves Ben outside with the snowman, and goes to find a camera.


	8. Peppermint

The right way to eat peppermints—the little round kind, the one that has red spirals edging closer and closer to the center—is to suck on them until they degrade and become porous, and then bite down as hard as possible; chewing and chewing until nothing is left but the minty flavor tracing the back of his throat, in Five’s very humble and correct opinion.

It’s very satisfying to feel the crunch of the candy. The dust gets between his teeth and sticks, and then it melts away, slowly, slowly. It settles on the roof of his mouth and peppers the spot under his tongue. 

Five can count the number of times he’s eaten a peppermint in his life on his fingers. It’s always been stray pieces that fell from victims’ clothing, or damp wrappers on the ground still covering candy in November. Once, somebody threw a bucketful of mints at them as they were posing for a photo; Five had only managed to salvage two—one for himself, and one for Vanya. Reginald confiscated all the rest.

In the apocalypse, there are not peppermints. Just endless debris and ruin. Just the smell of death and decay thick in the air. (Although bodies rot much slower than they should. Did whatever killed everything annihilate the bacteria too?)

Either way, there are no peppermints. They’ve all been melted, crushed, destroyed just like the rest of the… The rest of  _ everything. _

Five has always been fond of sweet things. They’re quick to give energy, and even quicker to eat, most of the time. But the only scraps of sugar he can find are Twinkies—a whole box of them.

After vomiting for two days, he vows to never eat Twinkies again. Even after he gets back.

( _ If _ he ever gets back.)

Five wipes his mouth on his ripped up and disgustingly dirty sleeve, and stands—he braves it. He braves the pain. Constantly.

It isn’t a new development. He’s been braving the pain—lying through his teeth saying no it doesn’t hurt, yes he can do it again, yes he can take it  _ yes _ he can do it faster, better, stronger, he can he can he  _ can _ —since he was young. 

(Too young, a voice inside him says. He agrees.)

He braves it.

He doesn’t touch a Twinkie again.

Years pass, and soon enough years are turning into lustrums, and then decades, and then (he knows this one isn’t true, but it feels like) centuries. Then, after…

He doesn’t actually know how long it’s been. Looking down at his white hair, his wrinkled skin, his ragged clothing and crooked posture, he concludes: a long, long time. He’s outgrown his siblings by years. He’s been the oldest for such a long time.

The Handler—that’s what she calls herself, and he can’t tell if she still has her own name—smiles with bright red lips and a glint in her eyes. Her hair is very similar to Mom’s. A little shorter, a little lighter, but so awfully alike. He holds back a shiver.

She offers him what she calls a deal; an offer. He hears “trap.”

But it’s fine. Five looks back at Dolores and steps forward, ready to abandon what has been anything but home to him for nearly the entirety of his lifetime—it has been his prison, his dungeon, his set of teeth chewing and crushing and grinding his bones to dust.

The Handler keeps grinning; his role as the peppermint is finalized.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is [@seven-misfits](https://seven-misfits.tumblr.com/) and i'm crying why did i decide to do this
> 
> drop a line please i crave validation


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